


7x06: God's A Bit Of A Bastard

by OsleyaKomWonkru



Series: OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100 [6]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: ALIE - Freeform, Earth Flashbacks, Eligius Corporation, Episode: s06e13 The Blood of Sanctum, Flashbacks, Gen, Interplanetary Travel, Post-Episode: s06e13 The Blood of Sanctum, Pre-Apocalypse, Pre-Canon, Second Dawn Bunker (The 100), Second Dawn Cult, Sibling Rivalry, Temporal Anomaly, The 100 (TV) Season 7 Speculation, The Anomaly - Freeform, time dilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22670029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsleyaKomWonkru/pseuds/OsleyaKomWonkru
Summary: Raven sends Bellamy, Hope and Murphy on a risky mission, while Cadogan tightens his grip on Omphalos, and Octavia considers the implications of Madi's revelation about the man's history. But as his story is revealed, the key to reaching him seems further away than ever.16 weeks. 16 episodes. An entire fan-created speculative version of season 7. Each episode will have four chapters, posted once per day from Tuesday to Friday.
Relationships: Becca & Bill Cadogan, Bellamy Blake & Hope Diyoza, Bellamy Blake & Octavia Blake, Eric Jackson/Nathan Miller
Series: OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595290
Comments: 12
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Episode 6! Read [Episodes 1-5](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595290) first if you're new here.
> 
> The title of this episode is from a line from the show _Being Human_ (UK version), episode 2x08. The full quote, said by the vampire Mitchell to the scientist Lucy is "God made man in his own image. What if that included his rage, and his spite, and his indifference, and his cruelty? What if God made us too? We're all His children, Lucy. But God's a bit of a bastard. Look at us both, covered in other people's blood and talking about morality. But there's one difference between me and you. You had a choice."

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - EVENING_ **

“Bill Cadogan _murdered_ her. Bekka Pramheda. His own _sister.”_ Madi emphasized to the others sitting around the table. “How could he do that?”

“He was afraid.” Octavia said. “He was afraid of her and what she was capable of. I know the feeling.”

“How does that help us unlock the key to him though?” Gaia asked. “Bekka Pramheda was burned alive, but the Flame was still passed on. That’s where the name came from. But the Flame is no more. ALIE is gone too.”

“It’s not about the Flame or any of Becca’s tech. Lexa said it was about Bekka Pramheda herself. Not as a Commander, but as a woman.” Madi explained.

“Her relationship with her brother.” Niylah said. “Her relationship with the brother who killed her.”

Octavia nodded as Niylah reached out a hand to rub her shoulder, the memory of being poisoned suddenly fresh in both of their minds. “Becca was a secret, just like I was. But instead of being hidden away from the world, their mother sent her and her older brother to a completely different world to protect them.”

“How can Becca, how can their history, help unlock Cadogan’s hidden pain?” Ash asked. “We know they’re siblings now. We know that he killed her. Does he feel remorse over it? Or at least sad about it in any way? Would that be a part of it?”

“No.” Niylah said, looking straight at Octavia. “It’s about history repeating itself, isn’t it? Preventing history from repeating itself, rather. It is why you let Hope go when she needed it, rather than casting her out when she needed you. How you said making different choices in your mindspace gave you a way to move forward. It is about breaking the cycle. Breaking free from the past.”

“Exactly.” Octavia said. “The key to reaching Cadogan isn’t anything I can do. I can’t unlock him. I’m on the wrong side of the sibling equation to be able to do that.”

“But Bellamy can.” Ash said slowly. “Once Bellamy sees, he can unlock him. We should ask Raven to send him here.”

“Ask Raven what?” Raven asked, appearing next to Ash.

“Has Bellamy seen yet?” Octavia asked.

“By whose standards?” Raven asked. “By Hope’s, no, but they are getting better at working together. They saved Jordan’s life. Bellamy is getting more amenable to learning, but he isn’t quite there yet.”

“We can’t bring him here. Not yet.” Octavia said. “It’s too dangerous. Has Miller made it back to Sanctum?”

“No. Haven’t seen him.”

“If he’s not back by morning, send some people out to look for him. Let me know the second you see him, because if there’s no sign of him… that could mean that Cadogan has him, and that’s not a scenario I want to see play out.”

Raven nodded. “I had ALIE in my head. I had Becca’s code in my head. How is it that I didn’t know that Becca was Cadogan’s sister?”

“ALIE didn’t care about human emotion or feelings.” Madi said. “ALIE just did what ALIE thought was right. So information that was irrelevant to that was just… discarded. Information about family would have been seen that way and discarded from the code.”

Raven smirked. “ALIE would have _hated_ this new tech. Good thing she’s not around anymore.”

“But Becca is.” Madi said. “I don’t know how, but she is. Just not in my head.”

“I concur.” Gaia said. “I had a vision of Becca in my mindspace. Becca, impossibly, survives somehow. Somewhere.”

“I’ll look into it.” Raven said. “I’m already trying to track Sheidheda. If I come across another mind that isn’t him, I’ll let you know.”

Raven disappeared, and Gaia turned to Octavia. “So now we have to go back to the beginning of this story. Where their story started.”

“It isn’t just their story.” Octavia said. “It is the story of brothers and sisters since time began,on every world, in every epoch of humanity on that world. The story of family found and lost and hopefully found again.”

**_CENTURIES AGO BY ANY TIME RECKONING_**  
**_OMPHALOS - CADOGAN MANSION - TWILIGHT_**

The room was dark. William could only hear his mother’s stifled whimpering as he pushed furniture against the door, standing watch, making sure that none of the servants would come by. If they came, they’d take the child, take the child away to _him._ To their father.

He wouldn’t let that happen.

“Help me!” His mother whispered as he pushed more furniture against the door, to guard against intruders while he went to her.

“The baby’s coming. Quick, get the blanket. I need you to catch the baby. Please.”

“Yes, mother.”

The labour was almost over, and with a few more moans, the child - a girl - was born. He cleaned her carefully, and wrapped her up in the blanket, preparing to pass her to his mother, when she waved the child away.

“I can’t see her. If I see her, I won’t be able to let her go. Take her away.” His mother said. “Far away.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“You have to. For her sake as well as yours. I should have taken care of him a long time ago. I should never have let him reach the power that he has.”

The baby began to cry, and he tried desperately to quiet her, eventually giving her the tip of his finger to suck on. His mother finished scrawling the end of a letter and rested back against the bed, folding it up with shaking fingers and handing it to him.

“This is for your sister. On her 13th birthday. Do not open it, it is only for her. Understand, my boy?”

“I do.”

“You’re already good with her.” She murmured. “You should name her.”

“Rebecca.” He whispered, already having thought of the name weeks before, named for the Terran mother of Jacob and Esau, one of the matriarchs of civilization in the religious texts on that world. He hoped his sister would grow up to make her mark on humanity too.

Their mother smiled. “That’s a good name. Now, get her out of here, my boy. But can you open the curtains for me please?”

“Yes, mother.”

He opened the curtains, and the Omphalan skyline appeared before them, visible below them from their house up on the hill.

“Get down to the basement.” His mother ordered. “Use the far passageway, it’ll take you to the tunnels under the keystone compound. Raphael is working keystone security today, he’ll be ready for you. He’ll have the code.”

“Do we have to go so far away?”

“Yes. Take her to Terra. That is the world where you’ll blend in the best. Raphael has a suitcase waiting for you of things you’ll need on Terra. He made an unauthorized slide for me a few weeks ago. We must be very grateful to him. Thank him.”

“I will.”

“Now get her out of here. Take your sister, and keep her safe. She’s your responsibility now.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, my William. I’ll try to wait, if I can. I can’t predict the time dilations, but I have faith that we will meet again. Now _go.”_

**_255 YEARS AGO BY TERRAN TIME_**  
**_TERRA (EARTH) - RURAL MARYLAND - AFTERNOON_**

Terra was not at all what William had expected.

After blasting through the keystone portal, he found himself walking up passageway after passageway, through the darkness, a suitcase in one hand and his newborn sister in the other. He was sure it had been hours when finally they came to a wall, and a ladder leading to a trapdoor above them. He entered in the same code that he’d watched Raphael enter on the keystone to send them here.

The trapdoor opened with a low hiss. William listened for sounds and signs above it - his mother and Raphael had mentioned that it was in a deserted forest, far from civilization, as most keystones were - but when it sounded clear, he pushed it open further, sliding the suitcase up first, and following with Rebecca in his arms.

Mother and Raphael had been right. The forest was deserted. Mid-afternoon, if his study books were correct on the placement of the sun in relation to Terra. He pushed the trapdoor closed again, and watched as it sealed with a soft click, invisible in the forest floor.

That was it. No coming back.

Rebecca began to cry, perhaps sensing that the last door to home had irrevocably closed.

“Shhhh.” William whispered. “Shhh shhhh.”

He sat down on a nearby log, opening the suitcase to pull out the bottles of formula that Raphael had provided. They were on the last bottle - it had been a long trip up that passageway, where he’d already stopped to feed her four times. They had to get to civilization, and soon. Did they even have formula in this world? They must have, since mother had done her research to choose the most suitable world, the world that was the closest in appearance and technological development to Omphalos. It still wasn’t completely there yet, but better than some other worlds that were still using sticks and stones to fight. This world, while not perfect, had a measure of peace that others did not.

While Rebecca drank from her bottle, William surveyed their surroundings, taking note of the trees, the moss, everything he remembered from Terran Studies at school. He listened for water, for motorized transport. They had quite high-speed motorized transport here, that he was aware of, the likes of which they’d never needed to use in Omphalos. But as he understood it, Terrans liked covering greater distances quickly, they had no desire to travel at a more relaxed pace between communities.

He heard the distant sound of motorized transport to what appeared to be the north, and when Rebecca was finished, he packed up their suitcase, and began making his way in that direction.

The thick trees meant he had to take a more circuitous route than he would have liked, but with no protection for his sister, he didn’t want to walk through thwacking brush that would smack into them. He needed to keep his sister safe, and covering her in injuries before he’d even made it to a Terran settlement would result in great distress, he knew. He’d read that Terrans were suspicious of strangers, and even more suspicious of people who were clearly outsiders, as they would be.

He just hoped that the Terran money that made up the bulk of the suitcase’s contents would serve as well as their mother hoped it would. He’d learned about money in school, and it seemed a silly way to do things, but he knew that the different cultures across the universe all managed their affairs differently, and most of them quite different from Omphalos.

The transport sounds came closer and closer, and after stepping around a few more trees, William found himself on the edge of a road, vehicles whipping by at top speed. The noise startled Rebecca, who had fallen asleep as William had ambled along through the forest, and she began to cry.

“Shhh shhh.” William whispered. “It’s okay, Rebecca. We’ll find a quiet place soon.”

William wasn’t sure how to cross the road, though there appeared to be a minor settlement on the other side, and so he looked up the road in both directions, seeing if there were similar settlements on the side of the road that he was on.

It seemed a bit distant, but with no better options in store, William turned right and walked along the treeline, further away from the vehicles where hopefully Rebecca would fall asleep again, until he reached an intersection where some lights made the cars stop. He darted across as quickly as he could, and walked towards the middle of the settlement that he saw up ahead.

Raphael had told him that establishments for receiving foreigners were called “hotels” or “motels” - why so close in spelling, but so different in amenities, William had no idea, but since he wanted to be more or less left alone, he looked for a sign that said “motel”.

After walking through the settlement for some time, he did finally spot a sign that said “motel” and walked in to the reception area.

A disinterested man sat at the desk, looking at him curiously. “Can I help you, kid?”

“I would like a room for me and my sister.”

The man stood up, becoming somewhat interested, noticing the newborn in his arms. “You steal that baby?”

“What?” William was affronted. “No. This is my sister. My father, he - he’s a bad man. My mother said he couldn’t get his hands on my sister, so she - she sent us far away. And now we’re here and we really need a place to stay.”

“I’m not a charity. You have cash, son?”

William nodded. “How much currency would it cost to stay here for a week?”

“Three hundred bucks. You got that?”

William put his suitcase on the ground and opened it carefully, cradling Rebecca in the crook of his arm. He picked up one of the bundles of money and peered at the numbers on the bills. They said $100 on them, so he pulled three out and handed it to the man. “Is that right?”

The man whistled as he leaned over the desk, peering into the suitcase with the stacks of cash. “Yeah, that’s right. Stay as long as you need, kid, I can see you’re good for it.”

The man took a key from the board behind him, with the number 13 on it, handing it to William. “Welcome to Baltimore, kid. Hope you enjoy your stay.”

“So this is room number 13?”

“Yep. Just outside, up to the second storey. Can’t miss it.”

“Is there a place nearby where I can acquire formula for my sister?”

“Grocery store just around the corner. It’ll have everything you need for both you and the baby. Might want to get some fresh diapers too.”

William sniffed, and yes, it did appear that Rebecca needed a fresh diaper.

“Thank you sir.” William said. “I’ll do that.”

“Hey.” The man said, as William was almost to the door. “Friendly suggestion. Keep that money out of sight. If you want to hold onto it, that is. There can be some bad people out there.”

William nodded, and kept moving, rushing up the steps, finding number 13. He fiddled with the key in the lock - he wasn’t sure if it was a stubborn lock, or if he was just unused to this sort of low-tech security - some things in Omphalos still used old-fashioned keys, but they were more of a novelty item than actual security measures.

Luckily, Raphael had provided them with some measure of these Omphalan security protections, and once he unpacked the clothing and necessities from the suitcase, and removed the bundle of money he’d already started taking bills from, he locked the lock on the suitcase, slipping it under the bed, where its security measures ensured that it bound itself to both floor and the bottom of the bed. No one would be able to get into it, and get to his money, without his fingerprint. Or cutting the entire building apart.

He changed Rebecca’s diaper quickly, wrinkling his nose at the smell and disposing of it in the bathroom. Shoving the bundle of money into his front pocket, he wrapped Rebecca back up in the blanket and headed back outside, locking the door behind him and pocketing the key.

The man hadn’t told him which side of the block this store was on, so William ended up walking three sides of the block until he finally found it. It was much larger than the food depots back in Omphalos, and seemed to carry more items than just food too. He wandered around, lost, until a young woman wearing a t-shirt with the store logo on it came up to him.

“Can I help you?”

“I am looking for the baby formula. I need it for my sister.”

“Aisle 9.”

“Thank you.”

William looked at the aisle numbers, and made his way to aisle 9, where he was overwhelmed with all of the different containers that said “formula” on them. They all made all sorts of claims that surely were exaggerated, he remembered reading about “advertising” in Terran Studies, and knew it was a big deal here. But he tried to cut through the nonsense, looking for a container that was listed for newborns, and when he found it, he placed a few of the containers in his basket, along with some new bottles, and went up to the front of the depot, where he saw the Terrans lining up with their chosen items. He observed carefully and saw how the employees of the depot took the chosen items from the customer, scanned them with some sort of infrared device, the customer and the employee exchanged currency, and then the customer could be on their way after putting their items into a bag.

William didn’t have a bag, and looked around to see if he could acquire one. He picked a cloth bag off a nearby rack, and proceeded to stand in one of the lines.

The exchange went smoothly, the Terran employee barely even looked at him twice.

Emboldened by this encounter, William left the depot, and looked around for a place where he could get food for himself, not wanting to experiment with the small kitchen that was in their motel room on his first night on Terra. He looked around, and just down the street he spotted a sign with “Diner” in the title, which seemed promising. One dined at a diner, he imagined.

Getting closer, he could smell the food and his mouth began to water as he realized he hadn’t eaten anything himself since before his mother had gone into labour that morning by Omphalan time. It was an entire universe away now, that world. One that he might not ever see again.

Pushing aside the melancholy, hearing how Becca began to whimper, knowing she might be hungry again, William hoped that the people at the diner would be so good as to help him make some more formula for his sister.

He pushed the door open and went inside.

William didn’t know the protocol at places like this on Terra, but he did what he would do in Omphalos, and made his way to a table where he sat down, cradling Rebecca in his arms and putting his shopping bag on the table.

A woman wearing an apron came up to him, pushing a laminated piece of paper across the table and peering at the baby.

“What a tiny baby!” She cooed. “Boy or girl?”

“Girl. Rebecca.”

“What a beautiful name. How old is she?”

“Not even a week.” William ran a finger over one of Rebecca’s tiny hands, still amazed at how small she was.

“Where’s the mother?”

“Our mother sent us away. Our father, he… our mother didn’t want Rebecca to have to suffer like I did growing up.” William said, looking up at the woman, an older woman, who probably had children of her own, given the sad expression on her face.

“This is your sister?”

William nodded. “Mother gave us money and told us to run. I did as she asked, but now… now it is just us and I don’t know what to do from here.”

“Poor kids. Do you have a place to stay?”

“We’re staying at the motel around the corner. But we are quite hungry and I don’t know how to make formula, I - I bought some at the store across the way but I don’t know how to prepare it.”

“I’ll get some made up for you.” The woman said, reaching for the shopping bag. “You take a look at the menu here and pick out a meal for yourself. On the house.”

William frowned at the unfamiliar expression. “On the house? I’m sorry, we’re not from around here - what does that mean?”

“Don’t worry about paying for it, son. I’ve got it handled.”

“Thank you, ma’am. What’s your name?”

The woman tapped a plastic square on her chest that said “Maureen”.

“Maureen. I’m sorry, I didn’t see. Thank you, Maureen.”

“What’s your name, son?”

“William.”

“Good strong name. I’ll be right back with the formula for your sister.”

William examined the sheet in front of him, grateful for the description of each dish, since the names themselves were often unfamiliar. There was a lot of fried food, which was fairly uncommon in Omphalos, since it wasn’t particularly healthy, only something that was an occasional indulgence. A section with _pasta_ perplexed him entirely, he didn’t know if they had something called pasta in Omphalos, if it was just a different name for something he did know or if it was something foreign to them entirely. He was at least lucky that the keystone had taken him to a place where they spoke a language that he did. His mother had been pragmatic about his education, it would seem, almost as if she had been planning to send him to Terra all along.

He settled on something called a _cheeseburger,_ and gave this request to Maureen as she returned with a bottle of formula for Rebecca. Rebecca stopped fussing and took the bottle gratefully.

“It’s just us now, Rebecca.” William whispered, kissing her forehead when she was finished. “I’m not sure how we’ll survive here, but we will. I’ll make sure you never want for anything.”

“That’s so sweet.” Maureen cooed, returning to the table and depositing a plate with some strange-looking food on the table in front of him. “Is she your only sibling?”

William nodded. “My mother was so afraid of my father, she… she didn’t want any more children after what he did to her and to me. But then she got pregnant again, sixteen years after I was born, and he - she promised herself that she wouldn’t let her daughter suffer as we had. My father is a powerful man, so she had to send us far away. I hope we’ll be safe here.”

“You did sound a bit foreign.” Maureen said. “Where are you from?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t know it.” William deflected. “But this will be our home now.”

“Well, welcome to Baltimore, son. People say America is the land of opportunity. If you’ve got the will and the money, you can make it here. Give your sister a good life.”

“I hope so.”

“I’ll get you a bassinet, so you don’t have to hold her while you eat. Just give me a minute.”

Maureen left briefly, returning with a small plastic tub that was just the right size for Rebecca. She put in on the table and William stood up to place her in it carefully so that he could eat.

The _cheeseburger_ was a bit strange, not as greasy or fried as he’d expected, though the fried potatoes next to it definitely had a greasy edge to them. There were some unfamiliar condiments and vegetables on the meat disc, but the cheese and the bread at least provided some measure of familiarity.

“How’s your food, son?” Maureen asked, coming back over and sitting down across from him.

“Good. Thank you very much.”

“When you’re done, I’ll take you back to the kitchen and show you how to make the formula, so you can do it yourself. Your room at the motel has a kitchenette?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Then good. It isn’t too hard. But you have to keep her fed and changed and it will be exhausting for the first months. Do you plan to stay at the motel the whole time?”

“I don’t know yet. We just got here, and - I just want to get my bearings before we think about what to do next.”

“Well listen. I’ve raised a lot of babies. My own, and I’ve helped my kids with their kids. We’ve got a good community here. On Sunday, we meet at the Dawn of New Hope Church, just a few blocks from here. If you join us this Sunday, then I can introduce you around, get you into a proper living situation, get you into work so you can support your sister and build a life.”

“Thank you. I seem to have lost track of the days of the week with all the running. What day is it today?”

“Thursday.”

William nodded. “Okay. Thank you. We’ll come here to eat as well.”

“Good kid. Now, if you’re done, let’s get you learning about that formula.”

* * *

Maureen let William keep the bassinet, and he took it back to the motel with him, exhaustion beginning to pile on him from everything they’d been through in the past… he didn’t even know how many hours had passed. But Rebecca was fast asleep in the bassinet, even as he struggled to hold it and their shopping in one hand while trying to unlock their room door.

Getting inside, he locked the door behind him and placed the bassinet carefully on the bed, where Rebecca slept on. He shrugged out of his own outer clothes and collapsed onto the bed beside it, hand draped over the edge, reassuring himself that his sister was there, that she was alive, and that they were both safe.

* * *

William was woken up several times during the night by Rebecca’s cries, needing to be fed, needing to be changed. He was simply exhausted. He returned to Maureen’s diner every night to feed himself, and on the third day, he even let her hold Rebecca while he ate, the first moment he trusted someone else with the care of his sister.

On Sunday, he and Rebecca joined her at the place that Maureen had mentioned. It appeared to be some sort of religious institution. William remembered learning about this world and its Jesus on the Cross as a popular mythological figure. He wondered what Omphalan story that had come from, or if it was something that the Terrans had come up with all on their own. They could be a creative bunch, that he knew.

After what Maureen called the service, there was a social aspect to the gathering, there was food and Maureen introduced him around to a number of her friends and family. One elderly woman offered to provide a home for William and Rebecca in exchange for William’s assistance around the home. Others offered cheap apartments, as well as offers of work. But William liked the elderly woman’s offer the most, for it meant he wouldn’t need to be separated from Rebecca.

And so it was that on Monday, William checked out of the motel, retrieving his bag of money before leaving the room, and stepping in to a taxi with their belongings that would take him and Rebecca to their new home.

The elderly woman - Gladys, a friend of Maureen’s - welcomed them warmly, showing William to a room that also had a crib, a proper bed for a baby so Rebecca would have a place to sleep once she outgrew the bassinet. There was also a stroller, a baby carrying device that held them strapped to one’s chest, an assortment of baby clothes and more cans of formula for Rebecca.

“My granddaughter’s daughter has been walking for awhile now, so she doesn’t need these things anymore.” Gladys explained. “And when I told her there was a young man with his baby sister alone in the world, she was all too happy to give these things to you.”

“Tell her my thanks.” William said. “Truly. I am very grateful for all that you’ve done.”

“Let’s go over what I’ll expect of you so that there are no surprises.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I expect you to keep the house clean and tidy. I will cook, but you are to do the washing up after every meal. I can walk around the house, but if I need to go out, I like to use my chair. I’ll need you to take me to my appointments in it, they’re just here in the neighbourhood, so we don’t need to go far. There’s yardwork that will need doing regularly as well - just cutting the grass, trimming the hedges, that sort of thing. Nothing too complicated.”

“Okay.”

“I understand that babies are babies, and that they cry. So don’t worry about that.” Gladys chuckled. “I’ve raised enough of them myself to know. But you do need to keep her clean and fed and happy. You’ve had a crash course in that now, and you’ve been doing well from what Maureen tells me, but if you ever have any questions, do ask so that we can make sure your sister grows up well. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am. Thank you.”

“I’ll let you two get settled. Lunch will be ready in an hour.”

Gladys left the room, closing the door behind her, leaving William alone with his sister.

“This is a good world, Rebecca.” William said, laying her down on the bed and laying down next to her, tickling her belly to make her laugh. “This is a good world with good people. Mother was right to send us here. I’ll make sure that you have everything you could ever need or want. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Rebecca. I promise.”


	2. Chapter 2

**_SANCTUM - TAVERN - MORNING_ **

Murphy strolled into the tavern, relieved to have had a night where he could sleep, the mind drive out of his head, no more visions, no more dreams, just himself in his head and the sweet bliss of silent sleep. 

Raven was sitting by the bar, eating breakfast, and he came up to join her.

“So how do you sleep with thousands of voices in your head?” He asked.

“It’s not as if everyone’s always there.” Raven said. “And I don’t have thousands of connections yet. I’m still working on them.”

“But I thought you were connected to anyone Octavia is.”

“Theoretically, I can be. But it doesn’t happen instantaneously. I need to cultivate the connections, otherwise they’re just passing flashes. I can connect with Octavia, Ash and Jackson without issue, and Inanna, Hope’s - well, I’m not entirely sure who she is to Hope, but they’re close anyway - she’s my first connection to someone I’ve never met in person.”

“Then who is Ash?”

“Right. Yeah. That’s the name Echo would like to us to call her now. She can give you the story if she wants.”

“I don’t have voices in my head, remember? I can’t talk to her.”

“Do you want to?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want to join? Do you want to see other worlds?”

Murphy downed the rest of the breakfast juice that Blythe Ann had put down in front of him. “See, I don’t know. You talk about emotion and connection and I’m just thinking of all of those memories I saw and it seems like a lot of pain.”

“It’s not all pain. Most of it isn’t, in fact. There’s happiness and love and you can feel any and all of it.” Raven turned her head, looking at someone who wasn’t there, a smile passing over her lips. “I don’t know her name yet. I don’t even know what world she’s from. But she’s just been so full of joy because her little girl has started walking. Sounds like just a normal kid milestone, but her child was born with only one leg. By learning the tech from another world, she was able to build her little girl an artificial leg that will grow with her that lets her move and crawl and walk and run just like any other kid. Something that would have never been possible if this network of minds didn’t exist.”

Murphy’s gaze drifted to Raven’s leg brace, and Raven caught the look, her hand moving there too. “To answer your next question, I haven’t asked. We’ve got too much going on right now. In fact, it is good you’re here, I need your help.”

“Help with what?”

“You’ve been to Gabriel’s camp? Near the Anomaly?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s a tower made out of radios there, Gabriel told me about it, about how the Anomaly sucks up the signals and they collect there, repeating endlessly. I need more of those radios. Now that we understand what the Anomaly is and what it does, I can calibrate them to… well, how I do it is isn’t important, just that I need more of them to be able to construct a device that will help us track Sheidheda.”

“I assume I’m not going on this mission alone.”

“No. And there’s more to the mission than just that.” Raven’s expression turned serious. “Miller left Octavia’s lab on the other side yesterday, and we’ve seen no sign of him here. I need you to bring Bellamy and Hope with you to look for him. They know the area a lot better, and Hope is resistant to the Anomaly in a way the rest of you aren’t.”

 _“Resistant_ to the Anomaly?”

“The red sun toxin is thick in the air around it. It can play with your mind just like during the eclipse. If someone’s already been exposed to the Anomaly by passing through it, then they wouldn’t be affected the same way.”

“Then why Bellamy?”

“He and Hope have some things to work out.”

“So I get to babysit. Great. We may as well just make them one of those t-shirts they used to make siblings wear on Earth before the bombs so they had to work together. You know, like we saw in that movie on the Ring.”

“Our Get-Along Shirt?” Raven almost snorted her porridge out her nose. “As tempting as that can be, it’s important. Bellamy’s made mistakes. So has Hope. By helping each other, they can begin to put them right.”

“All right. If Emori wakes up, let her know where I’ve gone. She’s still out cold. I think she’s relieved to have the mind drive out too, even though she wasn’t having the same kind of dreams that I was.”

“Two less minds that Sheidheda can take over.” Raven said. “And I will tell her, don’t worry. She and I have work to do here.”

“Do the Wonder Twins know about their mission yet?”

“They haven’t come by this morning. Bellamy was up in Clarke’s room. I don’t even know where Hope is sleeping.”

“I think I saw her stretched out on a bench by the pond. Brave of her to sleep out in the open like that.”

“She was raised by Diyoza and Octavia. I don’t think fear is in that girl’s vocabulary.”

“Fair point.” Murphy shoved another cookie into his mouth and stood up. “I guess I should go drag Bellamy away from Clarke’s bedside.”

“Wait.” Raven said. She picked up a slim leather pouch and handed it to him. “I want you to take this with you.”

Murphy opened it to find a needle, the compartment half full with what looked like blood.

“The radios don’t work yet, so we might need someone who is connected, because if you can’t find Miller, we need to know right away, because that means he’s fallen into Cadogan’s hands.”

“Cadogan?” Murphy asked with a frown.

“That name mean something to you, Murphy?”

“Sure. When I was trapped in the lighthouse bunker, all I had to watch on the TV were old video recordings that had belonged to who we now know as Becca. Cadogan was this creepy older guy who always seemed to be looking over Becca’s shoulder. Who she constantly argued with, saying he’s the reason she changed her surname, while he’d spout off something about how her tech would destroy the world but luckily he had a plan to save it. I don’t know if he was family to her or a disgruntled ex, but he isn’t someone I’d want around either.”

“Cadogan was Becca’s older brother. He was also the founder of the Second Dawn Cult that built the bunker under Polis, and the one who murdered Becca when she returned to Earth. He is also the guy on the other side who Octavia is fighting against.”

Murphy was instantly on alert. “Leaving aside about a million questions as to how that is possible, if it is the same guy, he’s seriously bad news, Raven. Be careful.”

“You too. So take that with you. You might need it.”

“I don’t know how to use it.”

“Hope can tell you. But it has to be you, Murphy. Bellamy and Hope can’t be connected right now. I need Jackson, Emori and Indra here. If you don’t want to stay in, you can disconnect yourself after, Hope can tell you how, but a lot of lives depend on being able to pass information along fast right now.”

Murphy nodded. “I better go get the kids.”

**_242 YEARS AGO BY TERRAN TIME_ **  
**_TERRA (EARTH) - WILLIAM AND BECCA’S HOME - MORNING_ **

“Happy Birthday!” William said as Rebecca - _Becca,_ he corrected himself, she wanted to be called Becca - came into the kitchen.

“Thanks, big brother.” Becca responded, hopping up onto a stool by the breakfast bar, ready to dig into her plate of birthday pancakes.

Before she could take a bite, she noticed an envelope with her full name on it sitting by her plate. The handwriting was her brother’s, but the shape of it wasn’t that of a birthday card, but rather a letter.

“What’s this?” She asked him, picking it up.

William sat down across from her. “You’re thirteen today.”

“Duh.”

“That is a letter that I’ve been holding onto since the day you were born. It is from our mother. She asked me to give it to you on your thirteenth birthday.”

Becca weighed it in her hand. Her brother had never told her much about their family, despite her asking about them. She’d eventually given up and secretly ordered a DNA test kit from one of those genetic genealogy testing companies, hoping to find some information that way.

But the results it came up with were “inconclusive”. They hadn’t been able to give her any far distant cousin matches either. Instead of the usual results she’d read about, she’d received a letter from the president of the company, informing her that her test results didn’t correspond to any of their known reference populations, and would she be able to tell them more of her origins, so that they could update those databases?

It had been puzzling to say the least.

But now as she held in her hand the potential to answer a lot of those questions, she started to worry about what those answers could be. She did know that she and her brother had arrived in Baltimore just a day after she was born, fleeing from their abusive father on their mother’s orders. But where they’d arrived from, William had never told her. Even some of the older women at his church hadn’t been able to say, since he’d never shared it with them either.

Why was it such a secret?

“What does it say?” Becca asked.

“I don’t know. Mother said it was only for you to read, and I respected that.”

 _“You_ respected that? You, who has insisted on reading my texts ever since I had a phone?”

“Mother told me to keep you safe. I’ve done that. I’m _doing_ that. Truth be told, I’m terrified right now. I have no idea what she’s written you in that letter. It could upend our lives as we know them. It could change everything.”

“Everything?”

William nodded. “I know I’ve been too overprotective. I admit that. But I was thrown into this world as a teenage boy with a newborn sister and only one instruction: Keep her safe. Everything I’ve done has been for you. For you to be able to have the life that I couldn’t. I know you’re going to college next year and I know you know that terrifies me. But none of that comes close to how terrified I am of what you’re going to find in that letter.”

Becca looked at the letter again, considering it, and then put it back down next to her plate. “Tell me then.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re afraid of what mother wrote in that letter. Why? What is it? What could _change everything?”_

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Find a place. Because I want to know the truth. And not from a letter from a mother I’ve never known. I want to know it from my brother. You _are_ my brother, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Then start with that. Where were you born? Where was I born? Were we born in the same place?”

“We were.”

“Where is that?”

William looked down at the counter, thinking for a long time, finally squaring his shoulders and looking back up at his sister. “Omphalos.”

Becca thought back to her classes on Greek mythology. “The navel of the world?”

“Of the universe, actually. I know you probably won’t believe me, but we’re from a different planet. A planet that considers itself the centre of the universe.”

“Are we human?”

“Yes. We’re the original humans, you could say. Because it is people from Omphalos that have colonized other worlds.”

“Then why don’t people here know about that world?”

“That’s the way it has always been. Worlds grow and worlds die. Omphalos restores them and repopulates them, but the origins are always lost to the sands of time.”

“How did we get here?”

“There’s a… wormhole, I guess you could say. Carefully hidden and with controlled access.”

“Can we go back?”

“No. I don’t know how much time has passed there. It could be only five minutes or it could be five hundred years.”

“There’s time dilation between the worlds?”

“Usually, yes.”

“Have you been to many worlds? Have _we?”_

“No. Mother broke many laws just sending us here. She said it was most similar to home, so it would be an easier adjustment.”

“Was it?”

“Some things are different, but yes. How are you so calm about this?”

“It is the only logical answer. We’re related to no one else on Earth.”

“You did one of those DNA tests, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

William buried his face in his hands. “This is not good. This is not good at all. How long ago did you do this?”

“Two years ago.”

“What happened? How did you get your results?”

“Just a letter from the president of the company.” Becca said, voice growing small as her brother’s quiet fury rolled off of him in waves. “He wanted me to tell them more about our family history so that they could update their reference populations.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing! I didn’t know anything to tell. Besides, it isn’t like their first guess would be aliens anyway. Science isn’t perfect, they’re probably just genuinely concerned they’ve somehow missed a group somewhere.”

“Rebecca Cadogan, I just want to -”

“Keep me safe, blah blah blah. _I know,_ big brother. I’m not going to call the DNA company and tell them we’re from a different planet. What would that accomplish? I wouldn’t know how to get there anyway.”

“You think they’d be wanting to get there?”

“Of course.” Becca fixed him with one of her intense “science mode” looks, a fixture in their lives ever since Becca had started fast-tracking through school, heavily invested in the science streams of the best private schools that money could buy. “This planet is dying. Everyone knows that. There are still a few years in which to turn it around, but unless we do something drastic, unless we have the will and the ability and the knowledge to do so, this planet will be dead.”

“You can’t bring people to Omphalos. That would… that would tear a hole in the fabric of the universe. Put a lot of worlds at risk.”

“I’m not going to. I’m going to do what I can to make life better on _this_ planet. This is our home now. I can’t do anything about other worlds. But I can about this one.” Becca finally took a bite of her birthday pancakes, though they had already grown cold. “Don’t worry, big brother. Everything’s going to be fine.”

**_OMPHALOS - HOLDING CELL - MORNING_ **

“What’s your name?” Cadogan demanded, looking at his captive, who looked far less worried than most who passed through the room, even when they were less chained up and under less suspicion than this man was.

“Nathan Miller.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“I assume you’re the Father William everyone’s talking about.”

“Were you born here, Nathan Miller?”

“No.”

“Where were you born?”

“The Ark.”

“That space station in the sky above Earth. Twelve stations coming together to form one.”

“That is the Unity Day story, yeah.”

“You don’t seem to be at all worried about your current situation. Why is that?”

“Should I be?”

“Most people are, when they’re chained up in a room and being asked all sorts of questions.”

“Are you planning on stealing my bone marrow?”

“No.”

“Are you going to make me eat human flesh?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Are you going to make me drink human blood so that I start worshipping bodysnatching AIs?”

“Most certainly not.”

Miller shrugged. “Then I’m not worried.”

Cadogan sat down on the other side of the cell, observing Miller carefully. “What are you doing here, Nathan?”

“Your people brought me in.”

“And where did they find you?”

“In what looked like the town square.”

“Are you looking for a better life here?”

Miller shrugged again. “Can’t be any worse than the worlds I’ve known.”

“That much is certainly true. But you see, we have a problem. You’re a problem, just marching right into the town. There are physiological effects, and then there are protocols. You see, if people pass through that Anomaly, there’s usually some period of unconsciousness that follows. But you didn’t have that, which tells me that you’ve already been here for some time. The only questions are how and why.”

“What’s that information worth to you?”

“What do you want?”

“A good life for me and my boyfriend. And for him, immunity from past crimes.”

“Immunity from past crimes. Interesting choice of words.”

“Cut the crap.” Miller sneered. “We both know why I’m here.”

“She’s come back, hasn’t she? And she brought you with her.”

“If by _her_ you mean Octavia, yeah. She has and she did.”

“Which then leaves me with the big question - did she make a mistake in bringing someone who has decided to betray her, or are you here on her orders?”

“I don’t follow her orders anymore.”

“But you did at one point, and it would appear your boyfriend still does, if you want immunity for him.”

“Yeah.”

“Were you in the bunker with her for those six years?”

“Yeah.”

“What role did you play?”

“I was the head of the Guard. And then later I was the leader of her army.”

“That’s a high position from which to betray one’s leader. Perhaps you are here on her orders after all.”

“If you know anything about her story, you know that people higher placed than me betrayed her.”

“Is that so?”

“That is so. Even her brother.”

“He didn’t have a formal place in your power structure.”

“No, but he was the one she trusted the most.”

“That would have been true, yes. And where is Mister Bellamy Blake these days?”

“Probably in Sanctum.”

“And his current relationship with his sister?”

“They’re not _currently_ trying to kill each other.”

“It is a bit hard to kill Miss Blake anyhow, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Cadogan motioned to one of the guards outside of the cell, and he handed Cadogan a syringe. Miller looked at it warily.

“What’s that?”

“A loyalty test.” Cadogan stood up, walking over to Miller. “Let me be perfectly honest with you. I am going to inject you with this syringe. If you’ve got her damned tech in your veins, you will die slowly and very _very_ painfully.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll live, and I’ll have an assignment for you.”


	3. Chapter 3

**_237 YEARS AGO BY TERRAN TIME_ **   
**_TERRA (EARTH) - WILLIAM AND BECCA’S HOME - MORNING_ **

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Becca demanded as she stormed into their home.

William - no, _Bill_ now, she remembered, William was too ‘old-timey’ for the new faith he was building - stood up from the table at the sound of her voice, turning to face her.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“I know you got me that one internship and I’m thankful for it, but it wasn’t using my full potential. So I’d been looking for something new. I’ve gotten a number of offers. But just now a third company that had offered me a job has called back and said that their funding for my position has mysteriously disappeared.” She slammed a pile of banking statements onto the table in front of him. “You bought them out.”

“Rebecca…”

“Don’t try to deny it. The proof is all right here.”

“This is for your own protection.”

“I’m sick of you wanting to control me!” Becca yelled. “I’m an adult now. I turned 18 last week. You have no right to control my life.”

“Everything I’ve done in this world has been for you.”

“I know that. Believe me, I am grateful for every opportunity I’ve had in this world. The best schools, the best colleges, the best universities. But none of it means anything if I can’t _use_ the knowledge that I have. If I can’t use it to help people.”

“What you’re doing now is dangerous. It risks exposing us.”

“How? How is wanting to make life better going to tell the world where we came from?”

“It’s what you’re doing to try to make life better.”

“Trying to create a pathway to the human mind? Trying to cure cancer? Trying to make humans more resistant to the chemicals and radiation that plague this world? Which part of that is so awful?”

“This world is lost, Rebecca. I wish it wasn’t so, but all the signs are there.”

Becca scoffed. “You’ve been spending too much time with your church again. Tell me, what day are the end times coming this year? Wouldn’t mother be ashamed of you, making this, this - _cult?_ Weren’t you the one who told me that our home world doesn’t have religion, that it is is an invention by Terrans to make sense of the things in the world that they don’t understand?”

“That doesn’t mean its superstitions can’t have value.”

“Value to _control_ people. Value to bend people’s desires so that they conform to your own.”

“I just want them to understand what I have. There’s no saving this world, little sister. There’s just saving those that can be saved.”

Becca contemplated the variety of meanings that her brother’s words could have, horrific at best, hypocritical at worst. “You were the one who told me that we couldn’t bring people to Omphalos. You were the one who told me that would _tear a hole in the fabric of the universe._ But now _you_ want to do it? Arrive back in Omphalos with your loyal herd of followers, the prodigal son returning to reclaim his family’s lost power? Or, if no time has passed at all, to unseat his father and take what is his?”

“Don’t misuse that parable, Rebecca. You know that’s not what it is about.”

“I don’t care what that parable is about! You’re the one who taught me right from wrong. You’re the one who told me that what we do matters more than what we believe. You’re the one who encouraged me to be everything that I could be. Should I be sorry that I exceeded your expectations? Because I’m not.”

“I’m your brother.”

“But you’re not my keeper.” Becca pushed the bank statements at him. “I transferred my half of our money to my private accounts. You don’t have access to them. I’m leaving tonight.”

“Where will you go?”

“A fourth company offered me a job today. I made sure they’re not interested in selling before I accepted it. You won’t be able to buy this one out, big brother.”

“Let me guess, you already did.”

“No. I could, but I didn’t. My earnings from this job will give me the rest of the money I need to set up my own company. But until then, I’ll give Mr Lightbourne your regards.”

“You didn’t.”

Becca didn’t answer, turning away from him and going upstairs to her room. She had already been ready for this day, pulling her packed suitcase out of her closet and placing her laptop into her backpack. She returned downstairs, putting her house key on the pile of bank statements that her brother was still looking down at.

“I want to make a difference in this world. Mr Lightbourne and the Eligius Corporation already have several projects that could use my skills. I know your history with him and I wish it hadn’t come to this, but you’ve given me no other options.”

Becca was halfway to the door before he spoke.

“Becca!”

“What?” She was just _tired,_ but he wasn’t using her full name, maybe that meant…

“Don’t sell your soul to a creation that doesn’t have one. You know what Russell Lightbourne is capable of. Don’t let him use your idealism to create monsters.”

“My _idealism_ will give the people of this world another chance, even if they’ve already blown the ones they’ve had.” Becca went the rest of the way to the door, opening it before she turned back to look at her brother.

“I know you don’t have hope for this world, but I do. It’s the only one I’ve known, and it is one that I’m willing to fight for. I hope that one day you’ll understand that, big brother. But for now I have to go.”

And she did.

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - AFTERNOON_ **   
**_SANCTUM - LAB - AFTERNOON_ **

“We knew that Becca was connected to Eligius.” Raven said as she paced between Octavia’s lab and the Sanctum lab, a whiteboard marker in her hand, though the whiteboard itself was visible only in Sanctum, where Emori, Jordan and Jackson were there with her. “We know that Russell was too. But what was Russell’s connection to Cadogan? Why did they hate each other? Becca wasn’t very clear on that.”

“We could just ask him.” Jordan suggested. “Russell, I mean. If he hates this Cadogan guy -”

“We can’t assume that the enemy of our enemy is a friend.” Octavia cautioned, Jackson repeating her words to the room in Sanctum. “We can ask Gabriel if he knows anything, if it becomes relevant, but we can’t do anything on that front until we know Miller is safe. If he is, they’ll bring him back to Sanctum. If he’s not, we find out where he’s being held, and we can rescue him at the same time we rescue Diyoza.”

“When Murphy brings back the radios, it’ll be much easier to scan for Sheidheda.” Raven said. “That needs to be our top priority over here. Because we don’t want Sheidheda hopping a ride with us through the Anomaly. He could infect Omphalos and from there the rest of the worlds and we do not want that.”

“Why are we going through this Anomaly?” Jordan asked. “We’ve got a perfectly good spaceship.”

“There aren’t enough cryopods for everyone.” Raven said. “There were four hundred and eleven of us when you woke us up. With Shaw, Abby and Kane dead, along with those who were shot by the Sanctum guards when the Primes came aboard the ship, that still leaves barely a hundred available spots for the Sanctum citizens and the Children of Gabriel. They’ve got more people than that.”

“The possibility does of course exist to rotate through cryo in shifts.” Octavia said, beginning to pace between the labs like Raven was, Jackson still relaying her words to those not connected. “If we can’t shut down Cadogan’s operation, we’ll take the ship and do that. The more options we have, the better, so have the transport stocked with the necessities and ready to fly in case we need it.”

“What about your people in Omphalos?” Raven asked.

“If they want to come, we’ll bring them with us. But I think most of them will stay and continue working against him. I don’t need to be in cryo, so I can continue to help them as they want it, but it is their fight, not mine. I lit the spark, but it is their world. Real sustained change in that world is not mine to make. Not to mention that even if we do stop Cadogan, maintaining that fair and more open world there will be up to them.”

“So we have two missions.” Raven said, returning to her whiteboard. “Stop Sheidheda and stop Cadogan.”

“In the big picture, yes.” Octavia answered. “But we can’t move on those until we hear from Bellamy, Hope and Murphy. So focus on the others. We’ll focus on rescuing Diyoza - and Miller, if it comes to that. You get Gabriel’s Children into Sanctum. If everyone’s in one spot when it comes time to evacuate, be it by transport or by keystone, that will make everything smoother.”

“What about the prisoners on the ship?” Emori asked. “We can’t just leave them there for all of eternity if we’re not taking it.”

“When Cadogan’s stopped, we’ll go get them.” Raven said. “The transport and the mothership are running low on hydrazine, I don’t want to make any superfluous trips. There’s enough for maybe three trips, be they up or down, and we need to save two of them. Unless I can fly the transport into the Anomaly and pick up some hydrazine in Omphalos.”

“Omphalos doesn’t use hydrazine.” Octavia said. “I know there are some distant worlds that do, but trying to transport it via keystone would be asking for trouble.”

“Okay. Let’s get to work.”

**_PLANET ALPHA (GAIA) - FOREST - AFTERNOON_ **

Bellamy and Murphy trailed behind Hope as they began their trek back towards Gabriel’s camp.

“I should be helping Jordan.” Bellamy said. “Not searching the forest for Miller.”

“Emori’s got Jordan.” Murphy reassured him. “She and Raven are recruiting him for the Sheidheda search. He’s good with computers, they’re good with computers, it’s a match made in heaven.”

“Heaven.” Bellamy scoffed softly. “Right.”

“Are you questioning Raven and Emori’s abilities to ingratiate themselves with Jordan, or the notion of such a place as heaven?”

“Do you think heaven exists, Murphy?”

Murphy took a long and deep breath. “I died, okay? Just a few weeks ago. I’m sure you remember, because you’re the one who killed me. I know, not your fault, it was the red sun. But whatever happened to me after that - I do feel like I saw a place beyond this one. Whether that was residual brain activity or something real beyond this life, I have no idea. I just know that whatever it was, heaven wasn’t a part of it. Not for me.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be knocking on that door either.”

“What’s this? The great and infallible Bellamy Blake admitting that he’s done wrong? Hope, you’re gonna want to hear this.”

Hope stopped and turned to face the men. “Do we have to get into this now?”

“We were going to get into it sometime, weren’t we?” Bellamy asked. “I know I’ve done some terrible things. I know I want to understand what happened to my sister. What more do you want me to say?”

“I don’t want you to _say_ anything.” Hope said. “You already talk too much. I want you to _listen_ and I want you to prove through your actions that you want to do better, instead of just saying it.”

Hope turned away from them and plunged on ahead, moving faster, trying to distance herself from Bellamy, but he chased after her, clearly intent on continuing the conversation.

Murphy recognized the part of the forest they were in, noticed the swerves in the motorbike tracks around them, remembering why they’d been swerving, _what_ they’d been avoiding…

He was just about to yell out a warning when he heard Hope swear, and Bellamy do the same just a few seconds later. Murphy strolled up to higher ground, walking close to the trees, to where he could get a good vantage point.

Bellamy looked up at Murphy from where he was stuck ankle deep in quicksand, furious expression on his face.

“Did you know about this, Murphy?”

“We all knew quicksand existed. Not my fault you weren’t being careful.”

Hope swore again as she struggled, sinking in further to mid-calf. “Can you go get us a rope or something?”

“Or something.” Murphy said. “The more you struggle, the faster you sink, just so you know. Gabriel’s camp isn’t far. I’ll find some rope eventually, Raven has a job for me to do there first.”

“First?” Bellamy asked incredulously. “You’re just going to leave us here?”

Murphy shrugged. “Call it team building. You’re both smart. I’m sure you can figure out a way to work together to get out.”

“Murphy!” Bellamy yelled as Murphy walked away. “Murphy, you better be getting that rope now!”

Murphy chuckled to himself as he moved further away. “Yeah, that’s gonna happen.”

**_229 YEARS AGO BY TERRAN TIME_ **   
**_EARTH (TERRA) - BECCA’S MANSION - DAY_ **

Becca stared at… at _ALIE,_ her AI that had taken on her own appearance. It was already disconcerting, just the brief moments she’d spent with this avatar, but even though she planned on eliminating the avatar the moment she returned to her computer, she figured this was an opportunity to make sure its commands were sound.

“Please state your core command.”

“My core command is to make life better.”

“How would you do that?”

“By fixing the root problem.”

“What is the root problem, ALIE?”

“Too many people.”

Becca blinked, which ALIE mirrored, causing a rising tide of dread to well up within her. “Too many people.”

“Too many people.” Echoed yet another voice behind her.

Becca’s sense of dread grew even further, as she recognized the voice that she’d been hearing all over the news, the voice that she’d once called _big brother._

“Too many people.” Cadogan said again, applauding with slow claps of his hands. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Becca. Isn’t this exactly what I warned you about?”

“How did you get in here?” Becca asked, deliberately not turning to look at him.

“Waves are low, I rowed over from the mainland. You’ve got a hole in your security system.”

“I’ll remedy that.” ALIE said, her voice frightfully even. “There. I’ve assembled a fleet of drones from the workshop. They will shoot intruders on sight.”

“Stand down.” Becca ordered. “Turn off the drones.”

“But I want to protect you.”

“Turn off the drones, ALIE. _Now.”_ Becca turned to her employee with the camera. “Turn that off too. Leave us.”

All of Becca’s coworkers and employees obeyed and left, leaving her in the hall with her brother and her creation. She now regretted them both.

“I warned you, little sister. Don’t you remember?”

Becca didn’t answer.

“You know I’ve been keeping up to date on all of your work.”

“You’ve said that the last five times you’ve found loopholes in my security system.”

Cadogan walked around to stand in front of her, swiping his hand through ALIE a few times. “Quite remarkable, even if horrific.”

“Get out.”

“At least you did me one favour. I didn’t think Russell had the stones to take off for worlds unknown himself. He might survive, assuming he goes to one of the planets that isn’t currently in healing.”

“He was on the Gaia team.”

“Oooh, bad choice.” Cadogan whistled. “But he’s always had a survival instinct, I’m sure he’ll fight back against that planet with everything he’s got. He might even make it if he’s lucky.”

“What do you want?”

“I came to warn you. You know the situation out there in the world is getting more and more dire. I know you’ve had great hopes for your creations, but from the sounds of it, it doesn’t look like she’s interested in saving the world.”

“I do want to save the world.” ALIE insisted. “The problem is too many people.”

“I agree.” Cadogan said. “Becca, even this creation of yours believes that you can’t save all of humanity. If she thinks there’s no hope, why do you?”

“I want to believe that people can learn. That people can change.”

“People can only truly _learn_ in one place. Here humanity lives as if in a cave observing shadows. You remember that allegory, yes? You know Plato and Socrates were two of ours. They never lived here on Terra.”

“You told me that when I was fifteen.”

“So you do remember. Humanity here is an imperfect species, that’s their fate. But it does not need to be _our_ fate. We can go home, Rebecca. Home to a place where we do have perfect knowledge. If we go back together, we could be unstoppable. Even if almost no time at all has passed, even if father is still alive and doing evil, we can stop him. Together.”

“I’m not interested in going anywhere with you.”

“Why are you fighting what is the order of the universe?”

“Because the order of the universe is wrong!” Becca yelled, finally looking at her brother. “If a world with perfect knowledge exists, it is wrong of it to hide itself. Just like your gods in the superstitions you encourage. Perfect beings who let evil loose on the world, why, precisely? Because they can? They’re just a metaphor for the society we left, and no better than it. It’s cruelty, plain and simple, and I won’t endorse that.

“So that’s why I fight for a better world here, _big brother._ Omphalos might consider itself perfect, but it is lacking that key component of what it means to be human - in fact, it is lacking _humanity_ itself.”

Becca looked at ALIE’s avatar, and knew immediately what she needed to do, but she couldn’t voice it in the AI’s presence. She wouldn’t voice it in her brother’s presence either.

She needed to destroy ALIE, though she knew ALIE herself would fight it as hard as she could. At least the network on which ALIE existed in the mansion was isolated from the wider world. Becca hoped that would be enough to isolate her further into a Faraday cage where she wouldn’t be able to slip onto a different network, because that… that would be where she could truly cause chaos.

ALIE was just like those so-called people in Omphalos. Lacking humanity, lacking empathy, lacking an understanding of what it meant to be human.

Becca wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

“Last chance, little sister.” Cadogan said. “Come with me, and you’ll be safe when this world burns. Come with me, and find your true home.”

“This _is_ my true home.”


	4. Chapter 4

**_PLANET ALPHA (GAIA) - FOREST - AFTERNOON_ **

Murphy made his way towards Gabriel’s camp on his own, thankful for the quiet and the solitude in which to think, without Bellamy or Hope or anyone else arguing around him or trying to engage him in deep conversation.

He’d spent a lot of time with his own thoughts recently, but without the opportunity to fully process them. He looked forward to some peace and quiet at Gabriel’s camp, getting the radios that Raven wanted, and contemplating the syringe in his pack.

Murphy knew that he had seen more of the brain tech of the different worlds than most. He’d been there when Jaha started with the City of Light, he’d already seen its threat before anyone else had. He’d seen Titus remove the Flame from Lexa, and known immediately what it was.

Now this new world had presented even more of it - Murphy had taken a leap of faith in trusting the Primes, trusting that joining them would protect his people. It was a crazy risk, he realized now - who was to say that the mind drives that he’d negotiated for to go in him and Emori had actually been blank? What would have happened if they’d taken the Nightblood solution, and then been hit with the mindwipe fluid, not becoming immortal themselves, but gullible hosts to restore the rest of the original Primes?

Which brought him to the new tech at hand - Octavia’s technology, something that linked minds and emotions across the universe. The thought of someone else having access to his mind scared him, but he was sure that Raven had done her due diligence in examining the tech, she more than anyone had suffered from what ALIE had done. She definitely wouldn’t have put something new in her body if she wasn’t convinced that it was very different from that.

Not to mention that if he _did_ have this tech, and was about to do something stupid, someone like Raven could warn him off and tell him he was being a dumbass. The thought of that did make him smile.

Murphy saw Gabriel’s camp up ahead. “Radios first, then the tech.” He said out loud into what he now realized was a completely silent forest.

The bugs were gone.

Murphy looked up to the sky, shading his eyes as he tried to see through the trees. But there was no need to strain to look - it was clear that the suns were, once again, eclipsing.

“This can’t be good.” He said to himself, and picked up the pace.

**_SANCTUM - LAB - AFTERNOON_ **

“So using these schematics, we should be able to use this transponder to be able to track Sheidheda.” Raven said, pointing to the different components on her whiteboard. “It’ll tell us if there are other mind signatures besides the dominant mind.”

“Where did you get these?” Jordan asked, fascinated. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Inanna put me in touch with a friend of hers on Pachamama. One of the reasons their world started dying was because of the havoc wreaked by a group of body jumpers. They were able to stop them, but they weren’t able to reverse the damage until they learned some of Omphalos’ tech after Octavia brought them her empathy tech.”

“And Inanna is on the planet called Ki?” Emori questioned.

“Yes. There are so many worlds out there. So much to learn, so much that you can learn. It’s incredible.”

“I’ll have some more connection doses available to go soon.” Jackson said. “Murphy has with him the rest of Octavia’s blood, but now we can use mine or Raven’s for everyone else who wants to join.”

Before anyone could respond, a siren started blaring throughout the lab.

“What the hell is that?” Jordan asked, running out through the skeleton room to see what was happening in front of the palace, where the siren was blaring as well.

“The eclipse is coming!” A Sanctum man called out to Jordan as he ran by. “We must head for the tunnels.”

“Time to go.” Jordan said, dashing back into the lab. “Unless you all want to experience the red sun eclipse again, we have to get below ground.”

**_PLANET ALPHA (GAIA) - FOREST - AFTERNOON_ **

Hope had stopped struggling, standing as serenely as she could, concentrating on maintaining her balance so that she wouldn’t sink further. Even though she couldn’t feel Inanna’s calming presence, she reached back to those memories, the memories she’d always clung to when she needed them the most.

While Hope had achieved a balance of serenity and hadn’t sunk in past her mid-calves, Bellamy continued to struggle, in the quicksand up to his knees. The waves he was making threatened to throw her off her balance too.

“Stop struggling.” Hope hissed. “You’re just making it worse for both of us.”

“Making it worse. Right. Like it isn’t your fault that we’re here in the first place.”

“You can blame me or you can live, your choice. Take this time to reflect and grow, since you obviously can’t stop and think for five minutes any other way.”

“Right.”

“I _am_ right. You can struggle and sink further and maybe you’ll have gone under by the time Murphy returns with that rope. Or you can find an equilibrium and reflect on how being stuck in a pit just like this helped your sister want to live, and set her on the path that she’s on now.”

Bellamy stopped fighting the pull of the quicksand and did as Hope asked, the mention of Octavia’s experience driving him at least to try. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the sounds of the forest while he tried to find his balance.

But besides the wind in the trees, there were no sounds of the forest. The insect sounds had completely vanished. He looked towards the sky and saw the suns beginning to come into line with each other.

“Reflection is going to have to wait, Hope.” Bellamy said. “First, we have to survive.”

**_228 YEARS AGO BY TERRAN TIME - MAY 10, 2052_ **   
**_EARTH (TERRA) - SECOND DAWN HEADQUARTERS - DAY_ **

Cadogan sat behind his desk on the fiftieth floor of the Second Dawn Tower, a position from which he was able to observe the entire campus of his headquarters stretched out before him.

His following had been growing exponentially over the past five years, more and more people joining the cause, more and more ready to leave behind the empty promises of the government and other religions and welcome a new world order.

Not everyone would be saved, that he knew. Not even of his own people. Being able to negotiate his way back into Omphalos without ruffling too many feathers demanded a delicate balance, especially if he was to then be able to lead a mission back to Earth after its fall.

Which would be any minute now.

All of the pieces were in place. He checked his watch as he looked over his headquarters, noting that the sidewalks were almost completely empty. Good. Everyone was following their orders. Most of his people would be sheltered in their homes, for all of the protection that that would provide them. Members of the higher levels were dispersed to various sites around the country where he’d built more bunkers, how well they’d hold, if those within would survive, he didn’t know, but they also weren’t his concern.

His concern lay only with those who were currently filing into the bunker beneath the restricted rooms, near the base of the tower. These rooms were only accessible to those who had pledged themselves to the cause at the highest level.

Cadogan had bought this land as soon as he’d turned eighteen and able to do so according to the laws of this part of Terra - it had once been a mostly abandoned forest, but he’d constructed an entire city here, populated by his followers. Officially it was considered a research campus, where people could study and learn, but over the past few years they’d tightened their policies, restricting access even further, becoming almost a fortress.

The inner campus, that is, the area around the tower, was the most fortified of all. He’d started building it first, and in the beginning, it had been him by himself, for he needed to establish a solid base from which to build that still assured protection for the keystone.

For the tower was built directly over it, a sentry to guard it against anything the world could throw at it.

Cadogan could have waited for the natural order of things to unfold. But he was getting impatient. His sister had gone to space to work on her next abomination, and he knew she worked quickly. He couldn’t give her the opportunity to return to Earth with it. She’d live out the rest of her days on her space station, having to look out the window every day at all of what her good intentions had done to the world.

It was time.

Cadogan pressed a few buttons on his keyboard, and an avatar of his sister’s face appeared on his screen. But this wasn’t Becca, the child he’d raised since her birth.

This was ALIE.

“Hello, Bill.” ALIE said. “Is it today? Do we save the world today?”

“Yes, ALIE. We save the world today. I’m working my way into Chris’ system now, and for all appearances, it will look like a system malfunction on his side. Once you’re free, you know what to do.”

“Thank you, Bill, for helping me save this world. You’ll find it so much easier to restore without all of the extra people.”

“Thank you, ALIE.”

“I wish I could help you with the other worlds. You’ve mentioned there are some that might take centuries to restore. I could give calculations that will speed up the process.”

“No, it’s all right, ALIE. You only need to be concerned with this world like my sister was. But you need to be vigilant. If any new tech appears on this world, any tech that I’m not able to prevent from returning here, then you watch and wait and eliminate it at the nearest opportunity.”

“I will.” ALIE turned her head, nodding in confirmation of an achievement. “I’m free. You best get to that bunker now.”

**_228 YEARS AGO BY TERRAN TIME - MAY 10, 2052_ **   
**_EARTH (TERRA) ORBIT - POLARIS RESEARCH STATION - DAY_ **

Becca watched in horror as the bombs exploded all over Earth, more and more missiles streaking through the sky, headed for more and more destinations.

Mutually assured destruction. ALIE may have launched the first missiles, but people had pressed the buttons to launch the next ones. Maybe her brother had been right, maybe trying to save humanity had always been a lost cause.

“What have I done?” Becca whispered.

Cole and Peri left the room, Cole saying something about organizing the rest of the crew to try and contact the other space stations orbiting around Earth, leaving Becca behind to continue staring out the window as more and more bombs exploded across the globe.

There was a new crackle on the video screen, something that shouldn’t have been possible with regular technology, given the destruction that was taking place across the globe, and she already had a sinking feeling as to who it was.

“Hello, little sister.”

“Don’t.”

“Your abomination did this, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“I warned you. But don’t worry, humanity survives, as it always does. I’m taking my people home, Rebecca. I wish you were here with us, but instead your fate has taken you to the skies, where you’ll now have to live out the rest of your days.”

“She didn’t have to kill billions of people.”

“That’s what imperfect knowledge does. I told you that. Now you’re doomed to always be imperfect. You will never know the hallowed halls of Omphalos and the perfection that we have there. You will never know the possibilities that you could have had. Goodbye, little sister.”

Another crackle, and he was gone, leaving Becca alone to mourn the billions of lives that had been extinguished in an instant.

**_OMPHALOS - HOLDING CELL - AFTERNOON_ **

Miller survived Cadogan’s test. Hadn’t flinched once. Clearly Octavia’s judgment wasn’t infallible, but Cadogan already knew that. He knew that no matter how far she took her damned technology into the universe, that they would still never be perfect.

She’d thrown the opportunity at perfect knowledge away just as his sister had. Octavia had even _seen_ Omphalos with her own eyes, and still rejected it, still on her damned quest to break the order that had kept the universe alive for millennia.

But now Cadogan had the perfect weapon.

Miller grit his teeth as Cadogan administered another injection. As he pulled the needle out and bandaged over the wound, Miller’s body seized up briefly, relaxing again just a few seconds later.

“What the hell was that?”

“A sign that it is working. You know what your mission is now.”

Miller nodded. “Go back. Make my… _apologies_.” Miller curled his lip in anger. “Let her inject me with her tech and take the whole network down.”

“Excellent.”

History had a pattern, Cadogan was well aware. Just as he’d used Becca’s creation against her to destroy her and everything she held dear, he would do the same to Octavia.

At the very least, that would spare her own brother the pain of having to do it himself.

**_UNKNOWN LOCATION - VIRTUAL SPACE - AFTERNOON_ **

_“Yu sou nou na shil emo op, Pramheda.”_ Sheidheda hissed. _(“You can’t protect them, First Commander.”)_

_“Ai na.”_ Becca responded, trying to shut Sheidheda’s thoughts out of her own so that she could concentrate on the code she was building. _(I will.)_

_“Nou feva.” (Not forever.)_

_“Ai nou gaf in feva. Jos pleni.” (I don’t need forever. Just enough.)_

_“Ai rak osir op, Pramheda. Chit yu na dula?” (I control us, First Commander. What can you do?)_

_“Ai **step** osir **au**.” (I made us.)_

Becca’s code flew into the virtual space that surrounded them, doors slamming shut around Sheidheda as he screamed in frustration.

_“Chit yu dula?”_ He raged from behind his confinement, smashing his fists against the doors. _(What are you doing?)_

_“Ai gaf in kep emo klin.” (I need to save them.)_

Becca gasped as she came to, opening her eyes as Sheidheda was banished to a far corner of the mind she was in, a mind that _she_ now had full access to instead.

She had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming next week:
> 
> _**7x07 Hate is a Burden** \- As the suns eclipse above Sanctum, Bellamy learns the shocking events that brought Hope to Planet Alpha. Together, they struggle to resolve their differences before time runs out on their own lives._
> 
> Be sure to subscribe to the series (OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100) so that you get updates for the whole season and not just the individual episodes!


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